The Winter Storm
by annabanana38
Summary: Annabeth has sacrificed herself to close the Doors of Death. What happens to the others? **Alternate ending without HOH/BOO** **Chaos story- but different!**
1. Prologue

**The Winter Storm**

 **Prologue**

Chiron:

Chiron has seen many wars. He has seen heroes come and go, live and die. He is almost too used to the emotions that come as a result of death and destruction. He wants to help the campers but he isn't ready for that yet. Before he can help any of them, he has to help himself.

Annabeth Chase:

After making it through Tartarus, she and Percy were losing it. She knew that he was planning on staying behind to close the Doors of Death but she couldn't let him do that- for one, she thought that she was smart enough to still be able to find a way out but she also couldn't stand living without Percy. As they approached the doors, staggering and supporting each other, she whispered in his ear, "I love you, Seaweed Brain. I'll find you. I'll make it out another way. Don't worry." She shoved Percy through the doors and slammed them shut behind her. Then, she turned to face the onslaught of monsters behind her. Despite what Annabeth thought, there was no other way out. Without Percy, she died only a few hours later. Nico was the one to break the news to him.

Leo Valdez:

After Annabeth's sacrifice at the Doors of Death, the Seven (now including Nico) were desperate for someone to come up with a plan- a task that for some reason fell to Leo. Jason and Frank weren't able to fully understand and work with the Greeks who were too unorganized for their liking. Hazel, Piper, and Nico either didn't want that pressure or just didn't know what to do. And Percy. Percy was too broken to be able to form a coherent plan that wasn't a suicide mission for himself. So, Leo organized a form of attack that he thought would best be able to stand against Gaea and her army. However, things started to go wrong- his lines were being pushed back farther and farther until they had nowhere else to go. Desperate, Leo came up with the only plan he could. He flew Festus to the middle of Gaea's armies and pulled the wire that would cause Festus to blow up. "I'm sorry," Leo whispered his final words to Calypso before being engulfed by the fiery shrapnel and debris.

Nico di Angelo:

After the deaths of both Leo and Annabeth as well as feeling all of the other lives claimed by the war, Nico never settles down. He freely travels the world. Simultaneously, his father thinks he is at Camp Half-Blood while Chiron and the rest of the camp assume he is with his father. No one comes to look for him. Nico is alone, just the way he likes it. No one even notices he's gone.

Thalia Grace:

The war changed Thalia, though not enough for anyone but her to notice. Despite the fact that she refuses to abandon Artemis and her Huntresses, she is restless- even more so than usual. She has trouble following the simplest of orders, always running potential ulterior motives through her head before performing the task that was asked of her. It's not that she can no longer trust Artemis, its that she can no longer trust anyone. Losing her only true friends, Percy and Annabeth, in the very same moment has condemned her to a life of solitude, even amongst the Hunters.

Frank Zhang:

Despite his knowledge that they were necessary, all of the casualties of the war still caused Frank pain. As the son of Mars he understood that casualties always happen and that he would be naive to expect everyone he loved and cared about to make it through the war unscathed; nonetheless, he still didn't expect to be hit quite so hard. As a result, Frank throws himself into his work, becoming praetor of New Rome and allowing all of his personal relationships to disappear.

Hazel Levesque:

After the war, Hazel suffers from severe PTSD. She retreats to New Rome in order to attempt to heal. Unintentionally, Hazel allows her relationships with everyone to slowly dry out until they are no more.

Clarisse LaRue:

This war changed Clarisse more than she would ever admit, more than the last one did. She retreated inside herself and would allow no one anywhere near her for the fear that she would get hurt again. All of the people who lived at camp, whether they thought Clarisse liked them or not, they were all her family and losing them _hurt_. Gods be damned if she would ever let someone get that close again, if she ever let herself get hurt like that again.

Jason Grace:

The war. The war was something different for each of them, Jason saw that. For him, the war was pain and misery and death and destruction and despair. Nothing good came from war and nothing good could ever come from it. This particular war gave Jason an overwhelming sense of his own mortality. He realized just how fragile life was and how important it was to take advantage of the few fleeting moments that you had. After the war, Jason decided to travel the world and learn about the place so many of his friends had died to protect- before his own time ran out.

Piper McLean:

Similar to Jason, Piper emerges from the war with a new sense of the fragility of life. As a result, Piper intends to spend every minute of the rest of her probably too-short life with her friends, cultivating her relationship with each of them. However, her plans go awry when she instead abandons each of them in favor of accompanying Jason on his travels. Instead, Piper concentrates all of the energy she had been planning for each of her friends into her relationship with Jason, forcing them both into a codependence that they were better off without.

Grover Underwood:

Grover's two best friends, Percy and Annabeth were gone. Annabeth was dead and, without her, Percy had lost focus and his purpose. Without the two of them, he had lost his purpose too. In an attempt to regain some semblance of normalcy, he assigned himself the task of finding new half-bloods and bringing them to camp to try and prevent any more kids from dying, because that's what all of those casualties had been- _children_. They were all children. One day, he stopped reporting back to camp. Demigods stopped showing up. He is presumed dead.

Rachel Elizabeth Dare:

The conclusion of the Second Great Prophecy set Rachel on edge more than she would care to admit. While most of the others were feeling simple relief that it was over and slight triumph that they had prevailed, Rachel could feel nothing but restless anticipation. Would she be forced to share the Third Great Prophecy? Would her friends be forced to fight and to _die_ for what she said? She was full of pent-up anticipation. In an effort to try and relax, Rachel tried to do some good by joining Grover in his efforts to find as many half-bloods as possible and get them to camp. She is presumed dead along with Grover.

Percy Jackson:

Annabeth. Annabeth was gone. His fatal flaw was loyalty but without Annabeth, _he didn't know what to be loyal to_. How was he supposed to go on like this? How was he supposed to go on without her? He was lost and couldn't see any way around it. He was lost without his Wise Girl. One day, he left camp to go on a walk through the woods. No one has seen him since. He is presumed to be dead and to have allowed himself to be killed by a monster.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Suddenly, Percy sat up and found himself in an unfamiliar room. He couldn't remember how he had gotten there or why he would be there. He quickly scanned the room. It was empty, save for the rickety cot on which he was sitting and an open door at the other end. Keeping his hand on Riptide in his pocket, Percy walked out of the door. The door opened up into a long, narrow hallway that had only one other exit, another door at the far end of the hallway. There was nothing and no one else in the hallway, which was weird because Percy assumed he'd been captured by someone or other; however if there were no guards or even locks on the doors, then where was he really?

Percy walked down the hallway, drawing Riptide in pen form as he went. As he stepped across the threshold of the door, he prepared for an attack- his whole body tensing as he unconsciously lifted his pen. When he walked in, however, he was faced not with the hordes of monsters that he was expecting but rather with a figure sitting at a desk. Confused, Percy lowered his arm but kept it protectively in front of him.

"Ah, I've been waiting for you to wake up," the figure said, looking up at him. "I have a proposition for you, should you choose to accept it."

"Well, would you mind explaining what it is?"

The figure sighed. "Unfortunately, I cannot. Once you accept, I shall explain everything, however."

"Great, I love being kept in the dark. Why would I ever need to know anyone's plans? Nah, let's just leave Percy to suffer the consequences- he doesn't have anything to contribute anyway." Glaring at the figure, he asked, "Well, am I at least allowed to know who you are?"

The figure smiled warmly, "Yes, you may. I am Chaos."

Percy blinked, a jolt of fear going through him as he realized that he was speaking to the creator, the primordial of all. The feeling, however, soon passed.

"So… are you male or female?"

Chaos let out a low laugh. "I began my existence long before there was a name for such things and my existence will continue long after they are gone. I have no need to trifle with such frivolous matters."

Percy raised his eyebrows, "But like… 'him' or 'her'?"

"As I just said, neither; however, if it makes you more comfortable, you may refer to me as 'he' since that is the natural default for most languages."

Percy had been bouncing his leg as he stood facing Chaos but now began pacing the room. "So about this job thing… what can you tell me?"

Chaos took a deep breath and told Percy that all he could share at this point was that he wouldn't be able to return to camp. Percy hesitated a moment, running over what that would mean for him. Annabeth, his Wise Girl, was gone and everything around camp reminded him of her. Maybe if he took this job… maybe he could see the world for her, the way she'd always dreamed of doing.

"Can I travel?" Percy asked bluntly.

"Yes, you may. You can travel wherever you'd like a majority of the time."

"I'll do it."

Chaos explained what exactly he was asking of Percy. He explained that he has four lieutenants, Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn and that Percy would be fulfilling the role of Winter. All he was to know about the other lieutenants was that they were all just as recently filled. As Winter, Percy was now in charge of everything relating to Winter.

"Just to make this clear," Chaos grinned, "your 'seasons' were named after my lieutenants, not the other way around." Chaos then finished explaining that he was now in charge of all winter storms, of maintaining the cold, and controlling the winds. Essentially, Percy gathered that he is now in charge of maintaining the winter as he knows it. In order to do these things, Percy would also be receiving a series of additional powers. According to Chaos, these powers would not cancel out the ones that he received from Poseidon but rather they would supplement and highlight them. Chaos walked up to Percy, tapped him on the head, and the whole world went dark.

When he woke up, Percy was in a room very similar to the one he woke up in last. Experiencing a sense of deja vu, Percy sat up and immediately grabbed his head. Groaning, he stood up and looked directly into the mirror that was at the foot of the bed. Percy gasped. In the mirror was...well Percy wasn't entirely sure who it was, he just knew that it wasn't him. The person in the mirror had hair so white it looked tinged with blue and his eyes were a blue so icy that it nearly hurt to look at them. He was a little bit taller than Percy and paler. As he approached the mirror, however, Percy realized that the person moved with him in the mirror. But it couldn't be….

"Ah. You're awake." Chaos walked in and looked at Percy looking at himself in the mirror. "I had hoped to catch you before this but it seems I'm a little late"

"You think?"

"Well, no matter. I'm sure you've noticed the… changes your body has experienced? I may have forgotten to mention that yesterday-"

"Yeah, really."

"As I was saying," Chaos continued, fixing Percy with a glare, "in addition to taking a little while to fully set in, it may or may not also have an effect on your appearance, although I must say that I have found there to usually be an effect, the only question is whether it's minimal or not. Clearly, yours was not minimal; however, it could have been much worse. You know, Summer's transformation was fairly drastic- you mightn't even be able to recognize- well enough about that anyway. Moving forward, this is your room, You're welcome to decorate it however you like but keep in mind that you probably will not be here very often. Most times, you will be off doing your own thing, especially since you really only have to work for a quarter of the year. As far as your duties, you'll be in charge of creating the winter season and helping half-bloods make it to someplace safe during the winter. You'll work in collaboration with the other seasons, though I wouldn't be surprised if you never actually saw each other. Additionally, you'll fight alongside my armies whenever I deem it necessary, though that will only happen rarely."

Here, Chaos paused for a moment. "There was something else I needed to say… It was rather important too… Ah, yes! How you will be able to do that. Well, my power is currently settling in your body but once it does that, it will be yours to control. They will build on the powers that you already possess. Soon, you'll be able to control water, especially in all of its cold forms (snow, ice, frost, etc.) though not exclusively and freezing winds. I suggest practicing with those as soon as possible in order to avoid any sort of accidental snow storms in the future. Good luck!"

And with that, Chaos left Percy to his thoughts.


End file.
